Ack, mid-way, mid-way! Looking forward to home/ don't want to come home . . . if it were even remotely possible for me to come to Grad School in London . . . I'll probably be just as happy at most any of the Universities in the U.S. . . .
?
Met with my mentor again today and am very happy to have further refined my focus to how alterations to text affect humor within the plays - how humor functions and how alterations affect this function. This choice has been of course shaped by what I've read and seen - Irving cuts out nearly all of the low humor within his plays, especially that spoken by the women (though in Romeo and Juliet Mercutio is practically castrated) and, as in my earlier discussions of Romeo and Juliet and Merry Wives of Windsor (and other plays) note, humor is altered much in modern productions through cuts too - though the bawdy bits usually remain, often for the "cheap laugh" they induce - sometimes bits even being added.
Very happy too to say that Prof. McDonald (my advisor here) arranged for a meeting between myself and the Master of Text at the Globe Theatre - which happens tomorrow evening! Very excited and have a good list of questions of which I'll probably be lucky to get halfway through - but better to have too many questions than too few!
Will be adding on a day or two of the Irving studies - just want to look at a couple more scripts - then jumping ahead to Olivier/ Gielgud. Will be trying too to figure out what is accessible at UNH's library and what's only available here - have time before I need to write my Senior Thesis - and for my IROP presentation I believe I'll have a solid thesis/ supporting evidence anyway, and either way definitely want to use my time here focussing on what's only available here.
Walked around lots and lots this weekend, Saturday mostly to/ from/ around a place called Portabella Market, in some ways like an outdoor fleamarket but generally really neat. Bought - perhaps shouldn't have, but did - a spiffy bowler hat - photos to come perhaps but if the hat's as good a quality as I hope it is most of you will eventually see me in it!
Also discovered recently the existence of BBC Proms - or concerts. Hope to catch a few of these - very inexpensive and, from what I hear, very good. Beethoven's 5th Symphony's going on tonight - I think I'll try to catch it!
Oi, oi, oi! Not going to be able to go everywhere I want to go here - not enough time left! But some definites - Greenwich, the Tower, and St. Paul's. I really also want to go back to at least one place for say half a day - the Tate Modern.
Well, hope everyone is well!
Monday, July 28, 2008
Thursday, July 24, 2008
Regent's Park Productions
Been very disappointed with the Shakespeare production's at Regent's Park, though going, of course, has been a learning experience.
As mentioned, I saw Twelfth Night there recently; and last night I saw Romeo and Juliet. Both under the same artistic director, Timothy Shearer. Directorial vision "overlaps"?
I think the director must recently have quit smoking. Both productions have random cigarette smoking throughout - often negatively affecting character or perhaps sometimes done just to "inject" comedy into what I can only suspect was considered a "dead" scene.
Romeo, in my view, is not a smoker, no matter how "updated" his character - his person, his costume, his haircut. To add a second Friar to Friar Laurence's first scene, to split (though not evenly) the dialogue between the two, to have them sit on fold-out chairs just to smoke while discussing the uses of herbs . . . it's just not comedy, not needed. Preachers smoking? Fine, I get it; and a portion of the audience did laugh. But there's just something potent about that scene, the Friar seeming to meditate on power, his power, with his knowledge of the killing/ healing properties of herbs, which connects somehow - one can argue about the ways - to his trying to alter the violent state of Verona by conceding to wed Romeo and Juliet . . . and it's lost for a cheap gag.
Many other textual alterations to this production and, though I didn't care for it, I will try to go back to refresh myself as to which ones - still a bit tricky catching all alterations in a live performance, I think I basically would have needed to have been off-book for all the plays being staged and all the Quarto/ Folio variants to have done this exactingly, but I do catch lots (except with, for some reason, Lear). I thought about but rejected the idea of recording the performances; conscience preventing me; bringing scripts I tried but whether standing at the Globe or sitting anywhere there's never enough elbow room to have a script open and a pencil in hand. But I think with this R & J if I can go back - there's only one or two more showings - I'll sit on the grass bank and do what I can.
The scenes after Romeo's banishment, between Romeo and the Friar and between Juliet and the Nurse, were chopped up and mixed together, which might have worked if the production were better; the end was cut to pieces; Benvolio - here, he - gave Romeo the news of Juliet's death and the Friar learnt of his letter not arriving and then Romeo was at the tomb; he gave a few lines, drank his poison; Juliet woke and said "I do remember well where I should be"; Romeo did his "O true apothecary . . . thus I die with a kiss"; they kissed; he collapses, dies; Juliet "drunk up all?"; shoots herself in the head and then the whole cast comes out and stares frozen at the audience while the Prince gives a few lines. Other changes too but that's all I'll write about for now. It seemed that basically the production was going for the DiCapprio/ Danes Luhrmann film production effect of enhancing that moment so Juliet and Romeo realize what had happened/ their fate together, but it was oh so lost/ bungled. Going back I'll have better documentary proof of the exact changes - though the post banishment scenes would be harder because of the need to flip through pages instead of just following along with a pencil. Moments like this a "jist" is probably best to convey.
As mentioned, I saw Twelfth Night there recently; and last night I saw Romeo and Juliet. Both under the same artistic director, Timothy Shearer. Directorial vision "overlaps"?
I think the director must recently have quit smoking. Both productions have random cigarette smoking throughout - often negatively affecting character or perhaps sometimes done just to "inject" comedy into what I can only suspect was considered a "dead" scene.
Romeo, in my view, is not a smoker, no matter how "updated" his character - his person, his costume, his haircut. To add a second Friar to Friar Laurence's first scene, to split (though not evenly) the dialogue between the two, to have them sit on fold-out chairs just to smoke while discussing the uses of herbs . . . it's just not comedy, not needed. Preachers smoking? Fine, I get it; and a portion of the audience did laugh. But there's just something potent about that scene, the Friar seeming to meditate on power, his power, with his knowledge of the killing/ healing properties of herbs, which connects somehow - one can argue about the ways - to his trying to alter the violent state of Verona by conceding to wed Romeo and Juliet . . . and it's lost for a cheap gag.
Many other textual alterations to this production and, though I didn't care for it, I will try to go back to refresh myself as to which ones - still a bit tricky catching all alterations in a live performance, I think I basically would have needed to have been off-book for all the plays being staged and all the Quarto/ Folio variants to have done this exactingly, but I do catch lots (except with, for some reason, Lear). I thought about but rejected the idea of recording the performances; conscience preventing me; bringing scripts I tried but whether standing at the Globe or sitting anywhere there's never enough elbow room to have a script open and a pencil in hand. But I think with this R & J if I can go back - there's only one or two more showings - I'll sit on the grass bank and do what I can.
The scenes after Romeo's banishment, between Romeo and the Friar and between Juliet and the Nurse, were chopped up and mixed together, which might have worked if the production were better; the end was cut to pieces; Benvolio - here, he - gave Romeo the news of Juliet's death and the Friar learnt of his letter not arriving and then Romeo was at the tomb; he gave a few lines, drank his poison; Juliet woke and said "I do remember well where I should be"; Romeo did his "O true apothecary . . . thus I die with a kiss"; they kissed; he collapses, dies; Juliet "drunk up all?"; shoots herself in the head and then the whole cast comes out and stares frozen at the audience while the Prince gives a few lines. Other changes too but that's all I'll write about for now. It seemed that basically the production was going for the DiCapprio/ Danes Luhrmann film production effect of enhancing that moment so Juliet and Romeo realize what had happened/ their fate together, but it was oh so lost/ bungled. Going back I'll have better documentary proof of the exact changes - though the post banishment scenes would be harder because of the need to flip through pages instead of just following along with a pencil. Moments like this a "jist" is probably best to convey.
Monday, July 21, 2008
Pictures
On the way to Stratford, a street from the village, a view (pleasantly restricted) of the Avon, and the Big Ben clock.
Pilgrimage &c
Now I've fallen slack with the updates, oi! Impossible to go back and reconstruct all, so some highlights . . .
I did get to interview the director of the Ovo production of Twelfth Night at the Bridewell Theatre, though technological difficulties did their darndest to disrupt the process throughout - first, unable to access internet/ email made it so I wasn't aware of the appointed time until two hours prior and hence wasn't as prepared as I would have liked to have been (though still somewhat prepared and I've had luck in my life with "winging" certain things, here too). I was able to record the interview but then somehow lost the file when attempting to upload later - very late too - that night, probably pushed a wrong button in my sleepy brain-fog state of mind. But fortunately I've been able to largely reconstruct the interview based on my written list of questions and memory, and even some bits from the program, which were gone over in the discussion. So, no direct quotes but jists instead. I also have a script of the production to study.
The production was wonderful - a few flaws but genuinely delightful - a musical version of Twelfth Night. There is something that an amateur - or at least a small - company can bring to a performance that polish sometimes loses - heart, passion, fire. What was very interesting here is that - for anyone familiar with the play - they cut the lines at the end about Malvolio having a suit against the person who holds Viola/ Cesario's clothes but still managed to keep him a potent threat at the end of the play. All the characters came out at the end for a dance number - the production, set in the twenties, used period musical numbers rather than original music - and Malvolio danced, sulking, angry, ominous, without smiling, without singing along with the rest, and there was this bit where the company formed two lines and he was at the head of one, really clouding the celebration. Very neat. Other notable elements to this production but this most striking. A really great fun show, very vaudevilian and some shoot from the hip improv, a master of ceremonies opening the show and occasionally interjecting. He introduced the setting and I most loved how he established the "dancing twins," Viola and Sebastian, who of course looked nothing alike - "here they are, as alike as . . . two cheeks from one bottom!" Lots of fun gags like this, not worn at all, what Peter Brook might label as "Rough Theatre." Some of the songs were powerfully situated - the closing of the first act, after Malvolio's been duped with the letter, has him come out with a mannequin draped with one of Olivia's dresses and he sings, pitifully, humorously, "I want to be loved by you." Some technical difficulties led to humor too - a roof leaking for real onto an imagined deck of a ship during intermission led me to josh with the MoC - who was mopping - "swabbing the deck, eh?" Anyway lots of fun memories from this show.
Twelfth Night at Regent's Park not so much fun - major alterations were the usual "shipwreck" moved to open instead of "If music be the food of love" and updating the "we three" songs to more recognizable bawdy bits with lots of reference to male and female parts and such, but here serving little. Hard to describe how this show failed, still thinking about it . . . partly an inconsistency of style as opposed to what could have been a powerful juxtaposition of styles, if that makes sense at all.
Merry Wives at the Globe was simply delightful. I honestly didn't like that play much in reading, though a bit more fun acting Falstaff in Interpretations of Shakespeare (a theatre class) but here it was brought to life. I've got to go back, oddly I caught more alterations with this show which I hadn't really meant to focus on than with any other . . . a subplot gone (the tricking of the tavern host), pretty sure the character of Bardolph entirely deleted, a bit where a schoolmaster teaches a young child latin meant to be funny but perhaps awkward for a modern audience to hear a child say or percieve as funny "whorum, harem" and the like. Oddly the line of the priest near the end saying he'll look after the childrens' parts (for the staged tricking of Falstaff) perhaps got something like the laugh that would've been in that earlier scene. So, no one loses anything, no property, no job, no children saying anything filthy - a sanitization to bring out the farce, make it more of the sitcom the program advertized it as. Still, very funny!
AND! AND! I made my pilgrimage to Stratford-upon-Avon, a two day trip (one full day really). The loveliest place in the world, I think. I got to see Shakespeare's birthplace and his grave - or the stone floor above it - and well it really did end up feeling like a pilgrimage. The birthplace especially crafted this story through its museum like peices and walk through as if Shakespeare's life were a logical loop leading him from Stratford and back to Stratford again. Some of the guides were funny . . . one saying that after the Globe burnt down (I think in 1616 but I'd have to check) it was never rebuilt until recently of course (not true) and another saying how one day Shakespeare got this idea, this really startling and powerful idea, that he'd go to London and start a theatre . . . (so not true, he became a part of a theatre already in the process of establishing itself) . . . but I bit my tongue and didn't even raise an eyebrow and let everyone bask in the miracle myth. I got to see two Royal Shakespeare Company productions, Merchant of Venice (not so good) and Taming of the Shrew (superb). The first maybe failed because the director - I've learned - doesn't believe in characterization with Shakespeare or even blocking, thinking these interfere with an organic or more "natural" production, which would somehow be trueer and more alive . . . not so. Shrew took the it's entirely a play that exposes misogyny and that's all it's about tack, but still a very good show, made the link between prostitution as the first and last bastion of misogyny (the program had images of the sex industry from SoHo here in London, which was also reflected in part of the set) and what was especially surprising was the juxtaposition of styles which worked here, the commedia del arte farce of most scenes against the breaking of Katherina, which was done very darkly. The only thing is that I think "the breaking" peaked too soon with a very powerful image . . . there's this bit where Grumio (a servant) torments her with the idea of food (she hasn't eaten) and she finally says something like "then the mustard or the beef or what you will" and here, on the line "what you will" she, well, "makes herself available" for Grumio, who, just as broken as she (he was the horse Petruccio rode in on) rejects the offer, shown his own pain. Maybe because this bit was so powerful some of the later scenes had this sort of floating, no where left to go energy. I did stay for the talk back here and got to ask about alterations to text or "how performance choices might necessitate alterations" and though I had this vague sense that the first half was a bit light I'd only caught a few changes and anway, most of the cuts were made for the practical reason of the first half otherwise running 150mns and unfortunately the rest of the answer turned to an error on my part: I'd thought a few lines had been reassigned from Petr. to Hortensio but apparently one of the Folios has the lines as Hortensio's and that was the text they'd used - hard with their being so many texts with some of these plays. But anway a powerful production that I'll be thinking about for a long, long time.
This week will hopefully wrap up the Irving studies, though I may perhaps need to return briefly to get some quotes to flesh out some ideas. Unfortunately maybe I took the approach of reading the criticism before the scripts and most of what I have from there is about acting styles, some stuff relatable to feminist theory, and lots of stuff on scenery that's very interesting that I'd hoped to relate to alterations to text but most of the alterations I've run across - though I haven't worked through much yet here - is the almost re-writing of female characters into so-called "proper" ladies. But I still have more to go and at worst I can save this by contextualization, taking what I've read in the light of the works of other, more moder scholars. I think the Olivier/ Gielgud studies should go much more smoothly having begun to learn how best to approach. Time wise it would much easier if copies weren't so expensive - it's actually about an American dollar per page! - making it so I have to type out everything that I think is relevant - and of course it's not always easy to know what's relevant, or anyway what might prove relevant. But I think anyway with all the preparation I've done for this project the purpose is partly to train me to do such work again, better - in all senses a learning experience.
Explored around Westminster (yes I saw the Big Ben clock!), St. John's Smith Square (architecturally serene), St. James Park and Buckingham Palace . . . lovely places. And my sense of the city keeps improving . . .
I did get to interview the director of the Ovo production of Twelfth Night at the Bridewell Theatre, though technological difficulties did their darndest to disrupt the process throughout - first, unable to access internet/ email made it so I wasn't aware of the appointed time until two hours prior and hence wasn't as prepared as I would have liked to have been (though still somewhat prepared and I've had luck in my life with "winging" certain things, here too). I was able to record the interview but then somehow lost the file when attempting to upload later - very late too - that night, probably pushed a wrong button in my sleepy brain-fog state of mind. But fortunately I've been able to largely reconstruct the interview based on my written list of questions and memory, and even some bits from the program, which were gone over in the discussion. So, no direct quotes but jists instead. I also have a script of the production to study.
The production was wonderful - a few flaws but genuinely delightful - a musical version of Twelfth Night. There is something that an amateur - or at least a small - company can bring to a performance that polish sometimes loses - heart, passion, fire. What was very interesting here is that - for anyone familiar with the play - they cut the lines at the end about Malvolio having a suit against the person who holds Viola/ Cesario's clothes but still managed to keep him a potent threat at the end of the play. All the characters came out at the end for a dance number - the production, set in the twenties, used period musical numbers rather than original music - and Malvolio danced, sulking, angry, ominous, without smiling, without singing along with the rest, and there was this bit where the company formed two lines and he was at the head of one, really clouding the celebration. Very neat. Other notable elements to this production but this most striking. A really great fun show, very vaudevilian and some shoot from the hip improv, a master of ceremonies opening the show and occasionally interjecting. He introduced the setting and I most loved how he established the "dancing twins," Viola and Sebastian, who of course looked nothing alike - "here they are, as alike as . . . two cheeks from one bottom!" Lots of fun gags like this, not worn at all, what Peter Brook might label as "Rough Theatre." Some of the songs were powerfully situated - the closing of the first act, after Malvolio's been duped with the letter, has him come out with a mannequin draped with one of Olivia's dresses and he sings, pitifully, humorously, "I want to be loved by you." Some technical difficulties led to humor too - a roof leaking for real onto an imagined deck of a ship during intermission led me to josh with the MoC - who was mopping - "swabbing the deck, eh?" Anyway lots of fun memories from this show.
Twelfth Night at Regent's Park not so much fun - major alterations were the usual "shipwreck" moved to open instead of "If music be the food of love" and updating the "we three" songs to more recognizable bawdy bits with lots of reference to male and female parts and such, but here serving little. Hard to describe how this show failed, still thinking about it . . . partly an inconsistency of style as opposed to what could have been a powerful juxtaposition of styles, if that makes sense at all.
Merry Wives at the Globe was simply delightful. I honestly didn't like that play much in reading, though a bit more fun acting Falstaff in Interpretations of Shakespeare (a theatre class) but here it was brought to life. I've got to go back, oddly I caught more alterations with this show which I hadn't really meant to focus on than with any other . . . a subplot gone (the tricking of the tavern host), pretty sure the character of Bardolph entirely deleted, a bit where a schoolmaster teaches a young child latin meant to be funny but perhaps awkward for a modern audience to hear a child say or percieve as funny "whorum, harem" and the like. Oddly the line of the priest near the end saying he'll look after the childrens' parts (for the staged tricking of Falstaff) perhaps got something like the laugh that would've been in that earlier scene. So, no one loses anything, no property, no job, no children saying anything filthy - a sanitization to bring out the farce, make it more of the sitcom the program advertized it as. Still, very funny!
AND! AND! I made my pilgrimage to Stratford-upon-Avon, a two day trip (one full day really). The loveliest place in the world, I think. I got to see Shakespeare's birthplace and his grave - or the stone floor above it - and well it really did end up feeling like a pilgrimage. The birthplace especially crafted this story through its museum like peices and walk through as if Shakespeare's life were a logical loop leading him from Stratford and back to Stratford again. Some of the guides were funny . . . one saying that after the Globe burnt down (I think in 1616 but I'd have to check) it was never rebuilt until recently of course (not true) and another saying how one day Shakespeare got this idea, this really startling and powerful idea, that he'd go to London and start a theatre . . . (so not true, he became a part of a theatre already in the process of establishing itself) . . . but I bit my tongue and didn't even raise an eyebrow and let everyone bask in the miracle myth. I got to see two Royal Shakespeare Company productions, Merchant of Venice (not so good) and Taming of the Shrew (superb). The first maybe failed because the director - I've learned - doesn't believe in characterization with Shakespeare or even blocking, thinking these interfere with an organic or more "natural" production, which would somehow be trueer and more alive . . . not so. Shrew took the it's entirely a play that exposes misogyny and that's all it's about tack, but still a very good show, made the link between prostitution as the first and last bastion of misogyny (the program had images of the sex industry from SoHo here in London, which was also reflected in part of the set) and what was especially surprising was the juxtaposition of styles which worked here, the commedia del arte farce of most scenes against the breaking of Katherina, which was done very darkly. The only thing is that I think "the breaking" peaked too soon with a very powerful image . . . there's this bit where Grumio (a servant) torments her with the idea of food (she hasn't eaten) and she finally says something like "then the mustard or the beef or what you will" and here, on the line "what you will" she, well, "makes herself available" for Grumio, who, just as broken as she (he was the horse Petruccio rode in on) rejects the offer, shown his own pain. Maybe because this bit was so powerful some of the later scenes had this sort of floating, no where left to go energy. I did stay for the talk back here and got to ask about alterations to text or "how performance choices might necessitate alterations" and though I had this vague sense that the first half was a bit light I'd only caught a few changes and anway, most of the cuts were made for the practical reason of the first half otherwise running 150mns and unfortunately the rest of the answer turned to an error on my part: I'd thought a few lines had been reassigned from Petr. to Hortensio but apparently one of the Folios has the lines as Hortensio's and that was the text they'd used - hard with their being so many texts with some of these plays. But anway a powerful production that I'll be thinking about for a long, long time.
This week will hopefully wrap up the Irving studies, though I may perhaps need to return briefly to get some quotes to flesh out some ideas. Unfortunately maybe I took the approach of reading the criticism before the scripts and most of what I have from there is about acting styles, some stuff relatable to feminist theory, and lots of stuff on scenery that's very interesting that I'd hoped to relate to alterations to text but most of the alterations I've run across - though I haven't worked through much yet here - is the almost re-writing of female characters into so-called "proper" ladies. But I still have more to go and at worst I can save this by contextualization, taking what I've read in the light of the works of other, more moder scholars. I think the Olivier/ Gielgud studies should go much more smoothly having begun to learn how best to approach. Time wise it would much easier if copies weren't so expensive - it's actually about an American dollar per page! - making it so I have to type out everything that I think is relevant - and of course it's not always easy to know what's relevant, or anyway what might prove relevant. But I think anyway with all the preparation I've done for this project the purpose is partly to train me to do such work again, better - in all senses a learning experience.
Explored around Westminster (yes I saw the Big Ben clock!), St. John's Smith Square (architecturally serene), St. James Park and Buckingham Palace . . . lovely places. And my sense of the city keeps improving . . .
Wednesday, July 9, 2008
Tuesday, July 8, 2008
Progress!
Just finished working through the correspondence of Ellen Terry and Shaw - it takes longer than I'd expected to work through some texts - and very interesting material; will need to reflect.
I think with reading mid-to-late Victorian and mid-20c texts (Shakespeare plays w/cuts, criticisms, autobiographies) that I'll only be able to "sample" the literature - otherwise, for example, I could spend my whole time here just reading the writings of Shaw or Olivier!
Learning to balance my time here, though slowly. I really could spend all my time at the British Library digging through old docs! Trying to incorporate more "exploring time" especially. I'm out more at night (and not just at theatres) though I haven't taken the bus yet. Should take the bus and see more of the city aboveground in this way too but, for example, a bus to the British Library takes 120 minutes but the whole tube trip (walking too) takes just under 30. But I will take the bus anyway this week - even just to the BL - regardless of time because, darn it, I want to see more of this city! I think soon it will be easier to have a few afternoons during the week plus weekends to explore - mornings at the BL, most evenings at theatres.
Also trying to plan a weekender with Shakespeare at the Royal Shakespeare Company in Stratford - yay! Once I've got the dates set too I can scoop up all the tickets to other shows here in London (knowing I'll be here) for those "free" weekend dates. Will have a good (well, better) schedule then.
Did have an interesting day walking around last Saturday through Leicster Square, Picadilly Circus, Oxford Circus and all the way down to Hyde Park - where I couldn't find Speakers Corner, but I will return! Thousands upon thousands of people bursting the sidewalks and streets along this route - it seemed mostly shoppers!
And was very suprised + happy too to discover today that Ellen Terry was stayed frequently at a hotel in a part of the city I walked recently – the Victoria Embankment. So much of this history is coming more alive in me – no longer abstract people living in abstract places in abstract times, but something much, much more concrete.
**Lost connection completely for a long while, then had stuff to do, so – later additions.
Ventured outside Central London to East Croydon and caught a wonderful one man show called Falstaff with Roger Forbes. The trip was relatively easy though some of these stations are mazes in themselves – my first overground trip! The sunset on the way back was beautiful. The show was interesting especially in that it was my first time seeing a one man show and I was surprised, even just one good actor really can hold you enthralled for 2 + hours. Falstaff being a Shakespearean character (perhaps my fave), there were obviously lots of references to the plays, pulling in ‘self-referentially’ as many productions (especially film) do of ‘the works’ many characters and quotes. ‘This brave old world!’ A cook named Macbeth who murders his sleep by demanding to be paid. A stepsister Ophelia whom he introduced to ‘mature subject matter.’ So many others + plus what I assume is more ‘real’ English history too. The play is based on a novel by Robert Fry, which I haven’t read, so it’s impossible to know what major alterations to the story ‘as Shakespeare wrote it’ (leaving the verse and, you know, the rest of the dramatis personae aside) are the play’s or the novel’s. I was not surprised so much by the play taking place long after the end of Henry V and its keeping Falstaff alive. More that it made the most significant alteration of an almost reconciliation with Hal and moving his knighting to a much later time – and by Hal! It created a ‘reformation’ for Falstaff (he was knighted for showing pity to another essentially), yet the knight didn’t seem to recognize this as what occurred. Interesting too that Falstaff, who so often ‘acted’ with Hal here acted alone for 2 + hours. More could have been done with this . . . Ah, I could go on forever!
Got some nice (relatively, some of the other IROPers are really good at this) photos to upload at the British Library tomorrow – one, of the Warehouse Theatre, has a guy ‘posing’ for the shot.
There was a bit of very amusing confusion over my ticket before the show started (I’d made the foolish error of booking two tickets at the same time this Sunday and had luckily switched this one to tonight) and the woman waiting behind me near the end of the bit said, quite amused herself, “You’re a bit like the Monty Python of theatre goers, aren’t you?”
!
I think with reading mid-to-late Victorian and mid-20c texts (Shakespeare plays w/cuts, criticisms, autobiographies) that I'll only be able to "sample" the literature - otherwise, for example, I could spend my whole time here just reading the writings of Shaw or Olivier!
Learning to balance my time here, though slowly. I really could spend all my time at the British Library digging through old docs! Trying to incorporate more "exploring time" especially. I'm out more at night (and not just at theatres) though I haven't taken the bus yet. Should take the bus and see more of the city aboveground in this way too but, for example, a bus to the British Library takes 120 minutes but the whole tube trip (walking too) takes just under 30. But I will take the bus anyway this week - even just to the BL - regardless of time because, darn it, I want to see more of this city! I think soon it will be easier to have a few afternoons during the week plus weekends to explore - mornings at the BL, most evenings at theatres.
Also trying to plan a weekender with Shakespeare at the Royal Shakespeare Company in Stratford - yay! Once I've got the dates set too I can scoop up all the tickets to other shows here in London (knowing I'll be here) for those "free" weekend dates. Will have a good (well, better) schedule then.
Did have an interesting day walking around last Saturday through Leicster Square, Picadilly Circus, Oxford Circus and all the way down to Hyde Park - where I couldn't find Speakers Corner, but I will return! Thousands upon thousands of people bursting the sidewalks and streets along this route - it seemed mostly shoppers!
And was very suprised + happy too to discover today that Ellen Terry was stayed frequently at a hotel in a part of the city I walked recently – the Victoria Embankment. So much of this history is coming more alive in me – no longer abstract people living in abstract places in abstract times, but something much, much more concrete.
**Lost connection completely for a long while, then had stuff to do, so – later additions.
Ventured outside Central London to East Croydon and caught a wonderful one man show called Falstaff with Roger Forbes. The trip was relatively easy though some of these stations are mazes in themselves – my first overground trip! The sunset on the way back was beautiful. The show was interesting especially in that it was my first time seeing a one man show and I was surprised, even just one good actor really can hold you enthralled for 2 + hours. Falstaff being a Shakespearean character (perhaps my fave), there were obviously lots of references to the plays, pulling in ‘self-referentially’ as many productions (especially film) do of ‘the works’ many characters and quotes. ‘This brave old world!’ A cook named Macbeth who murders his sleep by demanding to be paid. A stepsister Ophelia whom he introduced to ‘mature subject matter.’ So many others + plus what I assume is more ‘real’ English history too. The play is based on a novel by Robert Fry, which I haven’t read, so it’s impossible to know what major alterations to the story ‘as Shakespeare wrote it’ (leaving the verse and, you know, the rest of the dramatis personae aside) are the play’s or the novel’s. I was not surprised so much by the play taking place long after the end of Henry V and its keeping Falstaff alive. More that it made the most significant alteration of an almost reconciliation with Hal and moving his knighting to a much later time – and by Hal! It created a ‘reformation’ for Falstaff (he was knighted for showing pity to another essentially), yet the knight didn’t seem to recognize this as what occurred. Interesting too that Falstaff, who so often ‘acted’ with Hal here acted alone for 2 + hours. More could have been done with this . . . Ah, I could go on forever!
Got some nice (relatively, some of the other IROPers are really good at this) photos to upload at the British Library tomorrow – one, of the Warehouse Theatre, has a guy ‘posing’ for the shot.
There was a bit of very amusing confusion over my ticket before the show started (I’d made the foolish error of booking two tickets at the same time this Sunday and had luckily switched this one to tonight) and the woman waiting behind me near the end of the bit said, quite amused herself, “You’re a bit like the Monty Python of theatre goers, aren’t you?”
!
Monday, July 7, 2008
A headless man!
Or a chicken with its head chopped off?
Had been a touch disorientated and overwhelmed here in one small part of the UK. Mostly, truly, it's an exciting feeling of adventure - so much to experience. But ran across this feeling of whatever I was doing I should be doing something else - when reading, exploring; when exploring, seeing a play; when seeing a play, reading, &c. Plus I have this sometimes amusing, sometimes frustrating habit of getting a little lost each day (often because I'm in a new part of the city each day). And with reading, it's very hard to know whether what you're reading is the best thing to read, or if the next book on the list is more worth your time (and also trying to bear the knowledge that you just won't have the time to read everything relevant).
BUT! I went out for a couple pints last night with some friends, and all better! (Though I may need to have this medicine from time to time again - judiciously, of course.)
Also sampled the other night a French drink (popular in the south) called Pasis (made from the flower Anise) - tastes like candy, yum. (A lot of my amicable acquaintances here are not originally from England - Antoine, who shared the Pastis, is French.)
Figuring out lots of little things, too, like getting student discounts for theatre tickets: some theatres you can only do so on the day of performance if there are seats still free; some you can't do so at all; some you can do so online, but then the processing fee negates the discount. Scrambling to plan all the shows I need to see (I've put them on a grid, with dates and showtimes) and buy up tickets (regardless of discount if necessary) before the shows sell out. (The discount is called a "concession" - as if conceeding that they have to give students and elderly folk discounts!)
At the British Library I am working through a very interesting collection of letters between George Bernard Shaw and Ellen Terry: suprisingly, lots of cuts proposed by Shaw seemed to be intended to make Imogen a "stronger" female character. (The headless man reference in the title is from Cymbeline: Shaw and Terry talk about the merits of cutting the line.) On reserve, texts by Bram Stoker on Henry Irving; other criticisms; the Lyceum acting editions of Henry Irving, etc. Unfortunately it takes lots of time to work through a text, but doing so is very fun + interesting. I hope to work through the "Irving" material in the next two weeks and then jump ahead to the cuts and transpositions of Laurence Olivier and John Gielgud.
With the present performances I may have to do the "unfashionable" and go to a show script in hand to see what's been altered. I've now learned that it is much more difficult to notice medium-to-minor alterations with live performances, which, for me at least, are much more engrossing (hypnotic) than film. If so, at least once for pleasure, once for alterations, once for reflection seems like a good attendance plan.
Saw the Tate Modern yesterday (many, many interesting works) and walked about. Also trying to figure out how best to get pictures with me in them too - without losing my camera!
Had been a touch disorientated and overwhelmed here in one small part of the UK. Mostly, truly, it's an exciting feeling of adventure - so much to experience. But ran across this feeling of whatever I was doing I should be doing something else - when reading, exploring; when exploring, seeing a play; when seeing a play, reading, &c. Plus I have this sometimes amusing, sometimes frustrating habit of getting a little lost each day (often because I'm in a new part of the city each day). And with reading, it's very hard to know whether what you're reading is the best thing to read, or if the next book on the list is more worth your time (and also trying to bear the knowledge that you just won't have the time to read everything relevant).
BUT! I went out for a couple pints last night with some friends, and all better! (Though I may need to have this medicine from time to time again - judiciously, of course.)
Also sampled the other night a French drink (popular in the south) called Pasis (made from the flower Anise) - tastes like candy, yum. (A lot of my amicable acquaintances here are not originally from England - Antoine, who shared the Pastis, is French.)
Figuring out lots of little things, too, like getting student discounts for theatre tickets: some theatres you can only do so on the day of performance if there are seats still free; some you can't do so at all; some you can do so online, but then the processing fee negates the discount. Scrambling to plan all the shows I need to see (I've put them on a grid, with dates and showtimes) and buy up tickets (regardless of discount if necessary) before the shows sell out. (The discount is called a "concession" - as if conceeding that they have to give students and elderly folk discounts!)
At the British Library I am working through a very interesting collection of letters between George Bernard Shaw and Ellen Terry: suprisingly, lots of cuts proposed by Shaw seemed to be intended to make Imogen a "stronger" female character. (The headless man reference in the title is from Cymbeline: Shaw and Terry talk about the merits of cutting the line.) On reserve, texts by Bram Stoker on Henry Irving; other criticisms; the Lyceum acting editions of Henry Irving, etc. Unfortunately it takes lots of time to work through a text, but doing so is very fun + interesting. I hope to work through the "Irving" material in the next two weeks and then jump ahead to the cuts and transpositions of Laurence Olivier and John Gielgud.
With the present performances I may have to do the "unfashionable" and go to a show script in hand to see what's been altered. I've now learned that it is much more difficult to notice medium-to-minor alterations with live performances, which, for me at least, are much more engrossing (hypnotic) than film. If so, at least once for pleasure, once for alterations, once for reflection seems like a good attendance plan.
Saw the Tate Modern yesterday (many, many interesting works) and walked about. Also trying to figure out how best to get pictures with me in them too - without losing my camera!
Friday, July 4, 2008
Anticipation
Been roommate free here at Lee Abbey thus far, but tomorrow, no more! Who will move into this bed? And, will he be friend or foe? Hmm . . .
Tuesday, July 1, 2008
Sojourns
Later afternoon today I sojourned around Kensington Gardens, flanking Hyde’s Park (though I didn’t cross the water to explore there yet). A beautiful place, thoroughly invigorating; the walk cleared my mind. I sat under a tree and enjoyed my first Cornwall Pasty (traditional – something like the most delicious pot pie made from a roast dinner and handheld) and then saw Round Pound (lovely ducks and swans) and wound round to the Serpentine Gallery, which portrayed some work by Richard Prince. I can’t say I know much about modern art, but I like this man’s works so far, very much. It is odd how something taken out of context, like the hood of an old car or even a joke, can suddenly become an object of contemplation and beauty.
Before leaving I sought out the Peter Pan statue and tried to find the Statue of Physical Energy, but could only find Pan. A nice park, the world was there, walking, playing sports, soaking up the sun, etc.. Starting to think it might be normal not to find everything you seek for, too, here, generally, on one trip.
On the hike back to Lee Abbey, where I’ll grab some dinner before running to the tube to catch a show, I saw another performer and beggar, not far from one another. It was an odder pairing, too. The performer was pregnant (about six months) and looked a touch slatternly (so far most of them don’t) in a tight red shirt and other such and she seemed to be singing opera but I couldn’t tell if it was the radio in her hands that made the voice and she was mouthing or if it was her. The beggar was painful to see. He was curled in the shadow of a trash bin, nose to knees, his beard in that frazzled half state between short and long. Between the grime of his spread feet was a candy tin, bright with gold foil, for change. Against the tin was propped a very small light brown teddy bear with a black ribbon around its neck. The bear was only a little mangy. The man made eye contact with no one, and seemed only to be in pain.
On my few late night walks I’ve heard domestic quarrels and lovers loving and in the days the whole world seems to walk through these streets, people from everywhere, settling, having settled, transient and moving on.
Before leaving I sought out the Peter Pan statue and tried to find the Statue of Physical Energy, but could only find Pan. A nice park, the world was there, walking, playing sports, soaking up the sun, etc.. Starting to think it might be normal not to find everything you seek for, too, here, generally, on one trip.
On the hike back to Lee Abbey, where I’ll grab some dinner before running to the tube to catch a show, I saw another performer and beggar, not far from one another. It was an odder pairing, too. The performer was pregnant (about six months) and looked a touch slatternly (so far most of them don’t) in a tight red shirt and other such and she seemed to be singing opera but I couldn’t tell if it was the radio in her hands that made the voice and she was mouthing or if it was her. The beggar was painful to see. He was curled in the shadow of a trash bin, nose to knees, his beard in that frazzled half state between short and long. Between the grime of his spread feet was a candy tin, bright with gold foil, for change. Against the tin was propped a very small light brown teddy bear with a black ribbon around its neck. The bear was only a little mangy. The man made eye contact with no one, and seemed only to be in pain.
On my few late night walks I’ve heard domestic quarrels and lovers loving and in the days the whole world seems to walk through these streets, people from everywhere, settling, having settled, transient and moving on.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
